The Ecover Ocean Bottle, which holds Ecover’s washing-up liquid, is made entirely from recycled plastic, with 10% collected from the sea. The washing-up liquid itself has been developed with a special ‘sea lavender and eucalyptus’ fragrance.
The bottle represents a joint initiative between Ecover and some leading innovators in the marine conservation and packaging worlds. Using existing fishing boats kitted out with clever new technology, Waste Free Oceans’ ‘catch of the day’ project enables European fishermen to earn money by collecting between two and eight tonnes of waste plastic per catch for cleaning and recycling. As part of a trial project, this waste has been sent to Closed Loop Recycling’s plant where it was processed and turned into plastic, which was used by Logoplaste to make the new Ecover bottles.
The company’s ultimate aim is to create the conditions for a systematic clean up of the huge amount of waste plastic in the sea.
The development of this bottle follows Ecover’s 2013 pledge that it would use new types of recycled plastic in its packaging, which it says will set an example for other manufacturers to follow. This year, Ecover will be using one tonne of ocean plastic, which it aims to increase to three tonnes next year.
“The scale of the ocean plastic problem is enormous – around 46,000 pieces of plastic are swirling around every square mile of ocean, and every year at least a million sea birds and 100,000 sharks, turtles, dolphins and whales die from eating plastic. There is no choice – we simply have to aim to clean up ocean plastic for good,” said Philip Malmberg, chief executive officer, Ecover.
“Our ocean plastic bottle is just one small step on the way to solving the problem, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”
